Thrilling sight of those magnificent men in their timeless machines

The spectacle of 20 of F1's surviving world champions reunited with their cars in Bahrain should be reprised at Silverstone

The former Formula One world champions Keke Rosberg, Jody Scheckter, Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill, Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart and John Surtees at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir. Photograph: Diego Azubel/EPA

As the blue Tyrrell rolled to a halt, the driver silenced the raucous bellow of its engine. He lifted himself stiffly out of the cramped cockpit and eased off the white helmet with its familiar tartan band. For a moment there was nothing to suggest that this was not a scene from the early 1970s. Then he removed his flameproof balaclava, releasing the grey hair of the 70-year-old Jackie Stewart.

For an hour in the Bahrain desert at the weekend, it was like being in a time machine on shuffle-play. To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Formula One world championship, all but two of the 20 surviving men who have held that honour were assembled, and a handful of them were given more or less appropriate cars to drive on the Sakhir circuit. And one after another the grizzled locks came out from under the helmets, framing faces bearing smiles that told of the pleasure reawakened by the reunion of man and machine.

Some of them were at the wheel of the cars with which they had done famous deeds. There was John Surtees, 76 years old, roaring out of the pits in a tiny 12-cylinder Ferrari 158, its exhaust pipes an elegant bundle of steel spaghetti. Emerson Fittipaldi, aged 63, was in the sleek black and gold JPS Lotus 72 with which he won his first title 38 years ago.

Mario Andretti, 70 last month, had a slightly later Lotus 79, from 1978, his year of grand prix glory. From the following year came the title-winning Ferrari 312-T4 driven by Jody Scheckter, the only driver besides Stewart to bring his own car, for which he paid Enzo Ferrari $80,000.

Keke Rosberg had the squat little Williams FW08 from 1982, in which he outran his turbocharged rivals. Nigel Mansell prudently settled his solid frame into the capacious cockpit of a brutish Ferrari 375 from 1951, one of several cars that had made the journey from Bernie Ecclestone's private collection.

And then there was Damon Hill, his Williams FW18 attended by three of the team's mechanics who worked with him in his championship year of 1996: Dickie Stanford, Bob Davis and Colin Watts, observing the old protocols of start-up procedures and tyre warming before releasing him on to the track. "I used to think that this was the roomiest Formula One car I'd ever driven," Damon said. "I wonder why it doesn't feel like that now."

Behind his Rothmans-liveried car, a Lotus 49 in the Gold Leaf colours – the late Graham Hill's car from 1968 – slid to a halt and out stepped the tall, slender figure of 19-year-old Josh Hill, Damon's son and Graham's grandson, and about to embark on his second season in Formula Ford. "I kept asking him, 'Are you all right?'" Damon said. "But he's like, 'Just leave me alone, dad. Let me get on with it'. So I did."

You can't buy that sort of stuff. The oldest champion present, Sir Jack Brabham, will be 84 next month and gave up taking grand prix cars for a spin a couple of years ago. And of the 11 title holders no longer with us, several were commemorated by the presence of their machines, such as Alberto Ascari's Ferrari 500 and Juan Manuel Fangio's Mercedes-Benz W196, the latter driven by Mika Hakkinen, who was powered to his two championships by the German company's engines.

Even standing still and silent, these machines sing their history: the drilled aluminium pedals, the elegant Jaeger and Veglia dials, the tartan cloth upholstery of the Mercedes, the little dents and stone-chips like the cracks in the varnish of a Rembrandt.

It takes oil money, of course, to persuade Ecclestone to gather them, and their drivers, together for a parade in front of lightly populated grandstands in the middle of a desert. Somebody should persuade him to repeat the show this summer at Silverstone, where the first world championship grand prix was held back in 1950, for the delight of a capacity crowd.